With important vestiges of its abbey formerly located on the way to Saint Jacques de Compostela, the municipality of Airvault (Deux-Sèvres) is a major tourist and cultural center of Poitou Charente for all history buffs and architecture medieval.
The abbey Saint-Pierre, always full, is in itself a landmark of the Poitou Romanesque remarkable for its carved decorations. In the choir and in the nave and on the façade, capitals, medallions and statuettes draw the attention of the curious. The richness of its furniture, much of which is classified is also a major asset to the abbey which houses among others a mechanical organ in the nineteenth century cylinders, which is exceptional, but a wooden lectern eagle of the late seventeenth century or the cenotaph tomb of Pierre de Saine Fontaine, its founder died in 1110 at Airvault which established the rule of St. Augustine.
Unfortunately during the Revolution a road was pierced through the abbey separating the convent buildings of the abbey. Several buildings are still visible as the room called the "vat", the "prison" (fortified gate), underground rooms, the fourteenth-century chapel and especially the abbey house which hosts since 1975 the municipal museum Jacques Guide. In a pleasant and wonderful setting, this museum dedicated to the arts and popular traditions enables large and small, to dive into the heart of the daily life of past centuries. Temporary exhibitions are regularly organized as well as entertainment for children and adults.
